RNC Protesters Vastly Out Numbered by Cops

It looks like the $50 million in tax payer money Congress doled out for security during the Republican National Convention has paid off.

According to ABC News and Tampa Police Chief Jane Castor, so far this week three protesters have been arrested. Caster said most protests downtown consisted of fewer than 10 people and protesters were vastly outnumbered by cops.

ABC News said Hurricane Isaac may have discouraged protesters, but “some believe the huge show of force by law enforcement may have scared off any potential troublemakers.”

“There’s probably—and I don’t know what the number are, but there’s probably 10 security personnel for every protester who’s in town,” Tampa radio host Rob Lorei told the Amy Goodman of Democracy Now.

“What’s interesting is that you can’t get through downtown Tampa within blocks and blocks of the Tampa Convention Center, so if you’re trying to drive through, if you’ve got business down in that part of town, you have no access to it,” he added.

Prior to the RNC, the government converted downtown Tampa into a virtual police state. The convention is designated by the Department of Homeland Security as one of four National Special Security Events to be held in 2012. Others include the G-8 and G-20 confabs and the World Bank and IMF meetings. Globalists are particularly keen to make sure protests do not interrupt their move toward world government and bankster consolidation.

Speaking engagements by establishment political candidates have provided the TSA with an excuse to rifle through bags and conduct impromptu searches. “Tampa cops have used control freak rules dictating what citizens can carry in public during the convention to circumvent the protests of puppeteer activists,” we reported on Monday.

“Thousands of police — local, state, and federal, virtually all in khaki — will be on hand throughout the week, including the Florida National Guard. Over $50 million dollars have been spent to secure the area and suppress freedom of movement within downtown Tampa and surrounding areas,” Dave Id reported for IndyBay.org on Sunday. “Nearly 100 high-resolution surveillance cameras have been installed in the vicinity. Miles of fencing and concrete barriers have gone up in concentric rings around the site of the convention in the last couple of weeks. Helicopters constantly buzz overhead. There are even reports that unmanned flying drones will patrol the skies over Tampa, a first for a political convention in the United States.”

The federal government and the establishment media engaged in a coordinated propaganda campaign before the event. On August 23, we reported on a Department of Homeland Security and FBI bulletin issued to law enforcement warning that “anarchist extremists” would use IEDs, or Improvised Explosive Devices, at the Republican and Democrat national conventions.

“FBI and DHS assess with high confidence anarchist extremists will target… infrastructure in Tampa and Charlotte, with potentially significant impacts on public safety and transportation,” CNN dutifully reports.

No such “high confidence” terror incident has thus far occurred in Tampa. So-called “anarchists” were few and far between within the designated Gestapo zone surrounding the RNC.

The dismal protester turnout in Tampa underscores the fact that significant protest against the globalist empire – at least in the United States – is virtually dead or at least dormant. During the reign of Bush, the corporate media ignored large antiwar demonstrations and the Bush administration disparagingly dismissed them as “focus groups.”

Since that time, the Department of Homeland Security and elements of the national security state, operating under the rubric of the global war on terror, have implemented a high-tech surveillance police state that has successfully discouraged meaningful protest.

In late 2011, the Department of Homeland Security worked closely with law enforcement around the country in a coordinated crack down on the Occupy movement. The move effectively killed the movement that had captured headlines and inspired millions.

The Democrat convention in Charlotte, North Carolina, scheduled to run from Tuesday, September 4th through Thursday, September 6th, will likely be a repeat of the RNC. Millions of tax payer dollars will be spent to make sure protesters do not interrupt the establishment’s dog and pony show in the lead-up to its stage-managed election in November and the re-coronation of Obama or the installation of his ideological twin, Mitt Romney.